10,000 Clean Ocean Action volunteers took it upon themselves to clean up 127 miles of New Jersey shoreline, and what they found was surprising: sex pills, false teeth and a resuscitation kit for victims of drug overdoses, among other oddities that totaled more than half a million objects.
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The environmental group, which works to protect the quality of seawater in the New York Inlet, reported this week that the Garden State beaches extracted, among other things, the following:
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- Various pills to enhance male sexual energy
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- A piece of human hair
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- A complete denture
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- A brush to clean the toilet
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- a lottery ticket
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- A personal hygiene kit from Turkish Airlines
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- A condom that lights up in the dark
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- Several bags of marijuana (empty)
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- A resuscitation team for drug overdose victims
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The object that could not be missing on the beach
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oh! And the organizers of that major cleanup campaign also found a message in a bottle.
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“We don’t know what (the message) said,” said Cindy Zipf, executive director of Clean Ocean Action. “Although I hope it said ‘Don’t litter,'”
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More than 82% of what was collected were articles or pieces of plasticor. Bottle or cup lids reached a record number of 69,454, as did food and candy wrappers or bags, with 58,589.
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The group indicated that during this cleanup, which took place in the spring and fall of 2021, 513,605 items were collected, a record number since they began their beach cleanups in 1985.
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“It’s disappointing to see it go up (that number),” Zipf said. “We keep waiting for the numbers to go down. But the weird stuff is getting weirder and weirder.”
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They found thousands of masks in the sand
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The cleanup data also identified seasonal changes in the type and amount of litter on New Jersey’s beaches: 67 of 95 categories were significantly higher in the fall than in the spring, including dog waste bags; Plastic bottles; smoking-related litter; plastic takeout trash and popsicle sticks or spoons.
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Fewer face masks were found in the fall compared to the spring, but for all that, more than 3,600 masks or face masks.
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Through its cleanup, research, and education campaigns, Clean Ocean Action encourages residents of New Jersey and New York to take action to protect the things they love, like the beauty of keeping the beaches and its seas clean.
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